Lines 1—2

This poem contains some rhythms in the original German, but it is not highly metered. It is, instead, an example of modernist, free-verse poetry that does away with rhyme and meter. The lines are as long or short as the phrases they convey, rather than being of a unified length. Many of the lines are relatively long, and in both the German original and in the English translation are end-stopped, which means that a reader should pause after each line, except for the one line ending with "dreamless sleep," which should be read continuously into the following line "and flourish the white hair of time." The end-stopped lines provide a choppiness to the poem and also serve to foreground the poem's images.

The images themselves are striking, almost surrealistic. Speech appears both spiteful and golden, and "the apples of the mute" makes an inability to...